


Little Lies You're Told

by Juicy_eMelon



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-28 00:52:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19801315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Juicy_eMelon/pseuds/Juicy_eMelon
Summary: Soulmarks in old world text never come to pass. This is the way it’s always been and this is the way it always will be.A short soulmarks AU oneshot





	Little Lies You're Told

**Author's Note:**

> cw:// light mentions of self harm thoughts. Nothing serious, just to lean on the safe side.

They call it soul tainting. Some of the earliest generations of the Ark claim it started with them, various soulmarks never fulfilled, swaths of people never meeting their destined mentors, their closest friends, the cause of their biggest conflicts, or their loves.

The early generations held onto hope, their soulmarks still in a discernable language, but as the years went on it became clearer and clearer which marks were tainted, the handwriting becoming sloppier and sloppier until it became unreadable.

Scientists believe that it’s the product of solar radiation. Some of the more philosophical types believe that no soul is “tainted”, that they are simply connected to a person who was fated to exist but was lost in the fires of the apocalypse, that the reason those with tainted marks feel so drawn to the Earth is their soul is tied to one who would’ve been on the ground. They believe that no system of fate could account for such an immense loss of life. They believe that the descent into unreadable scripts is a result of whatever determines soulmarks not being able to precisely calculate the words the farther they get from global annihilation.

But soul tainting also became rarer and rarer as the years passed. Occasionally a new diagnosis appeared but largely as the conflict mark, some on the Ark hold strong to the belief that a tainted conflict mark is a good sign, that the more that there are the closer they are to utopia even in their small space.

Then came the most recent generation. A huge spike in in soul tainting diagnoses, over a third of all births bear conflict marks that are believed to be in the same handwriting, still unreadable but in neat flowing lines.

Believers in utopia would have rejoiced had there not also been a spike in all other marks as well. Those with multiple cases of soul tainting have different scripts on each tainted mark, and they all have at least two English marks as well.

All except for Clarke Griffin.

Clarke Griffin who has four identical soul marks.

Clarke Griffin who near as the Ark’s resident handwriting expert can tell has four soul marks that all match the conflict marks of a large percentage of her generation.

Clarke Griffin who lies awake at night, not sure if she’s even _allowed_ to weep after the kids in her classes started calling her the most tainted soul on the Ark. Because deep down she believes it too.

Clarke Griffin who goes two weeks without food behind her parent’s backs at age thirteen to trade her rations and short sleeve shirts for exclusively long-sleeved ones.

Clarke Griffin who looks above it all as her classmates find their love marks but lets out silent sobs at night because she’ll never get to experience what they have.

Clarke Griffin who takes some small comforts that even if she doesn’t have mark partners of her own, she’s been identified as no less than fifty-four of her generation’s mentor mark and five of their friend marks. A sign her mother takes that she’ll be the next chancellor.

Clarke Griffin who spends most of her days after getting locked in the Skybox tracing each wrist in turn, left then right, then her stomach, then the area over her heart. The same lines each time. The same lines she’s traced, and drawn, and dug her nails into and cried over countless times.

Clarke Griffin who’s currently on a dropship hurtling towards earth with ninety-nine other delinquents, most of whom bear the first words she said to them over the wrist of their dominant hand.

* * *

  


Soulmarks in old world text never come to pass. This is the way it’s always been and this is the way it always will be.   
  
The elders tell unfortunate _yungons_ that their mark partners were simply lost in _praimfaya_. That the world would eventually heal to the point where everyone regained their mark partners. That having a mark in _gonasleng_ made them strong because they carried an extra part of a soul, for if the soul had no body to inhabit then surely it would go to those who it was destined to be tied to.   
  
It’s the same reason why those same elders, and Titus in particular think Lexa was destined to be strong, destined to be _Heda_. Because what other option is there for the young girl bears four soul marks reading “You’re the one who sent them there to kill us.” in the identical curling scripts.

After her ascension everyone believes that those marks are why the spirit of the commander chose Lexa.  
  
Everyone except Lexa herself.

Lexa who hasn’t believed in fate. Or destiny. Or soulmarks since she found Costia’s head atop her bed.

Lexa who loved a girl who held Lexa’s first words to her on her heart but couldn’t return the favor no matter how much she loved her back.

Lexa who wanted to tattoo over her marks, or scar them over, or burn them after Costia, but couldn’t if she was intent on uniting the twelve clans because she knew the power it represented to her people.

Lexa who kept seeing proof that her soul was capable of producing soul marks everywhere she looked. On the corpses of her enemies, on the wrists of her _natblida_ , on the stomach of her _fos_ , everywhere it seemed but her own skin.

Lexa who never shed a tear. Not after Costia. But in her most vulnerable moments she mourned for what could have been. What should have been. She barely held on the first night when the thought crossed her mind that if she had simply held the mark to return Costia’s love then maybe, just maybe. She would have been able to save her.

Lexa who couldn’t stop the tiniest spark of hope that sprung up whenever she met a stranger whom she’d sent men to kill. An unfortunately common occurrence since her crusade to unite the clans began.

Lexa who once thought that tiny spark of hope extinguished was now consumed by an inferno when she learned Lincoln’s love mark was found. Lincoln’s love mark that was in _gonasleng_. The match to Lincoln’s love mark who had been found among the Sky People she had sent 300 warriors to kill.

Lexa who’s currently balancing a knife between her fingers waiting for Clarke of the Sky People to walk into her tent and change everything about what they thought their lives would be with ten words.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope y'all enjoyed. It's been a bit since I've written anything but this felt like a solid way to try and get back into the swing of things and hopefully commit to something longer in the future. Maybe even revisit this idea at some point, who knows.


End file.
